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Category Archives: Disability

I don’t know about you, but DST does a real number on me. It’s like jet lag that lasts a week or more. It’s hard to stay asleep and hard to function normally during the day. I’m just exhausted constantly, and it’s definitely gotten worse as I’ve gotten older. Dani Alexis likens it to a social model of disability. Brilliant!

Daylight Saving Time is quite possibly the best real-world example of how the social model of disability works that I have yet seen, as this past weekend has painfully reminded me.

Like a lot of people, I spend a week or more after the time change dragged out, sleeping poorly, unproductive, and with wildly varying moods. Even people who don’t consciously notice the difference to their own health or mood express it in their behavior: studies show that productivity tanks, people argue more, and the number of fatal accidents increases due to the time change. In other words, DST does a real number on our quality of life – at least temporarily.

What does this have to do with the social model of disability?

The social model of disability states, essentially, that while we may be impaired by conditions that have a medical, bodymind-based cause, we are not